It starts with slowly losing your ability to read those capcha things in online forms. Then gradually you send shorter, more frequent emails, which increase in annoyance and spelling errors and decrease in meaningful content. Then you begin feeling a strong urge to look at the Google keyword statistics page every few minutes. You may develop an obsession with collecting vast amounts of valid email addresses. The last step is when you begin writing your blogs in raw HTML and the meta tags contain more data than the blog post itself.
Do any of these symptoms sound familiar? If they do, you may have a severe infection of spambotitis. It is a degenerative disease that slowly morphs you into a spambot until you fade into the world wide web as just another useless email / tweet factory.
Consider this post your guide to survival in a world of targeted ads and social media. Here are some pointers on how you can avoid becoming a spambot!
1. Always use your real name in your email address.
As long as your account is secure, there is really no problem with this. Change your password often, and never use the same password for two or more different accounts. If you have trouble remembering passwords, either write them down near your computer, store them in a password tracker program, or come up with a way to construct them from an idea or a phrase that you can easily memorize. It helps if you use random letters, but can still attach some kind of meaning to them that only you would know - particularly something that relates to that account or website you're creating the password for.
Using your real name will distance you from sockpuppetry, the first step towards becoming a spambot. Spambots can send emails at will because they are completely anonymous, and multiple bots may be controlled by a single person or computer. Even though your real name is more traceable, as long as you don't attach your email address to any real details of where you live or who you are, the chances of an identity theft claiming your personal information are slim to impossible. Just remember that anything you don't post online can't be stolen online!
An added bonus is that it looks much better to have john.smith24@gmail.com on a resume than johnny_baby_margaritas@gmail.com.
FYI - Sockpuppetry is the act of managing multiple accounts on the same website, pretending to be different people (especially on forums or chat boards). It's a bad practice and usually engaged in by trollers or flamers who don't want to be recognized as such by people who have previously banned them. A troller/flamer is someone who goes around the internet looking for a way to start arguments and incite drama, tension, or anger on a forum or chat board. Flame wars are just a fancy name for online arguments, though the name comes from the fact that they can be (and are intended to be) quite heated and antagonistic, usually involving swearing and belittling by both sides. You have to be very, very careful to not buy into these arguments and continue feeding the fire.
2. Remain ignorant of SEO.
The second huge step in becoming a spambot is learning about SEO, or search engine optimization. The less you know about it, the better. SEO is a spambot's world and entire life. They eat, breathe, and sleep SEO, or they aren't good spambots. Steer clear and be free.
3. Don't read or reply to spam email.
Spambots are essentially a network of computers and email servers that churn out emails day and night, generating them on the fly based on SEO, ad targeting, and information stored in each user's browser about what they look at (called cookies). Cookies are harmless little bits of info that a website uses to, say, show you ads that are more relevant to the purchases and product choices you've made in the past, or shown an interest in by remaining on certain pages longer than others. Ignoring spam email puts fellow spambots' hard work into the dumpster where it belongs.
4. Learn to write clean and concise emails/chats/tweets.
Don't skimp on your writing skill online, even for "unimportant" emails. All emails have a potential to be forwarded to someone you might not have intended to read the email. You would be surprised how impressed people can be simply by a well-written email or chat with no spelling or punctuation errors - just think of how rare those are in today's world! Often we communicate more with what we don't say (albeit, via email) than in actual, verbal exchanges. Make sure your writing skill is up to par and doesn't scream "spambot" all by itself. There is no reason not to.
5. Don't waste time on social media.
Spambots are all about wasting time. Don't cultivate a habit of spending hours trudging through tweets and Facebook, and you'll be better off. Just think of all that extra time you'll have to spend actually being productive! I suppose you could make the argument that spambots are quite efficient and productive; however, the endless spam emails they send, and the fact that 95% of them are ignored completely, makes them some of the most inefficient and unproductive programs ever written.
Disclaimer: This post is intended to be humorous, but honestly I've seen some spam emails that looked more intelligently put together than emails I knew were from an actual person. Do yourself a favor and apply some security and discipline to your online communications. You'd be surprised where it might take you!
Disclaimer Disclaimer: On the other hand, instant messaging is a different beast. It's okay to "lol" and omit punctuation in instant messages, though the general principle still applies that neater is always better. In this case I find it is more a matter of personal opinion, Twitter being a close shoe-in to IM/chat. Ironically, Twitter's 140-character limit can actually help with point 4, since you have to learn to say a lot with a little.
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